Bloodiest week this year for U.S. troops in Iraq

Sunday 13th April, 06:22 AM JST

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westurn at 10:18 PM JST - 13th April

"Why do you think that the European countries should have get involved with this..."

For the same reason they shoulda pulled their collective heads outta the sand before WWI,WWII,Bosnia etc !!! Learn from yer own history for cripes sake ! We Americans are gettin' damn tired of coverin' yer asses everytime you run to hide from the realities of the world... the biggest being, there are evil people out there ! They'll find you whether you want them to or not ! Now, back to your lovefest kumbaya around the campfire ! Leave the world's major issues to the realists !
Betzee at 11:07 PM JST - 13th April

Leave the world's major issues to the realists !

And who would that be? As Senator George Voinovich, R-Ohio, observed last week at the Petreaus hearings, “The truth of the matter is that we haven’t sacrificed one darn bit in this war, not one. Never been asked to pay for a dime, except for the people that we lost.”

This woulda worked if it had been the promised cakewalk. But as this thing has dragged on for five years after major combat operations were declared over, the majority of the American people are not invested to "win." Perhaps the effort on the ground can continue to be subcontracted to a small group of volunteers. An ailing economy, however, cannot afford the USD 3 billion a week we're now spending and why, in the absence of a draft, mounting cost is what has finally prompted the American people to ask hard questions about the value of this ongoing conflict to American security.
FromEurope at 11:44 PM JST - 13th April

westurn

You claim yourself to be a realist??? The Europe of 90, 60 years ago or even 10 years ago are not the same countries as now. The UK of Brown and France of Sarkozy are not the same as the Blair’s and Chirac’s. But you put them all in the same basket as “Europe”. The realistic people who opposed to this invasion from the beginning know that America isn’t the same country as before G.W.Bush stole the US presidency.

And don’t believe that only the US saved France in the WW2. Without the victory of the USSR on the east front against Nazis, the allies couldn’t defeat Nazis that easily, without saying that the sacrifices of the Canadians, Australians, and other allies in the war against the real threat to the world. That’s what lacked in Iraq. The real reason. Without it, nobody would follow the idea.
westurn at 12:05 AM JST - 14th April

Betzee... "realists" would never believe this nonsense you post:

"This woulda worked if it had been the promised cakewalk." War is never a cakewalk !

FE: You are wrong again ! The Europe of today is making the same mistakes it made 90, 60, even ten years ago ! And the fact that you speak English, as I do, on this forum is proof enough that the Americans saved your Euro hide from the Nazis in WWII... yer damn welcome ! Now a little more humility would be greatly appreciated, your Candian friends and them Aussies would have never been able to throw the manpower, technology, and sure fire determination into the battle the way the Americans did. Again folks... as we can plainly see, the Europeans have learned absolutely nothing from their past and are doomed to repeat their miserable failures again and again and again... I'm off this topic, you all can wallow in your self rightiousness alone !
Betzee at 12:17 AM JST - 14th April

War is never a cakewalk !

"Six weeks to six months" ring a bell? We'll be greeted as liberators? All of this, incidentally, was used to dismiss those who pointed out war is never a cakewalk in the run-up to the invasion.

I'd be careful about comparisons to WWII when the American public was heavily invested in winning and every family was in the same boat as far as sacrifice and service were concerned.
westurn at 01:24 AM JST - 14th April

Betzee... I'm not going to waste too much time on you, so lets just cut to the chase... stop believing everything you hear or read in the mass media ! Believe you me, sound bites and political propoganda have nothing in common with the way wars are actually fought, won, or lost. I can't help but laugh at the likes of you, RJD, Colmer etc who fill these sites with quotes from various politicians and heads of state... yeh, like they've invited you into the real world of what goes on in the war room ! Get a grip on yerself... its a bit embarrasing for the rest of us to watch you naively regurgetate quotes that you've been fed to ease your simplistic little mind... like it ever really mattered ! Betzee, trust me, you have no idea what the strategies for this war are nor the real reasons behind it. Just go home, enjoy your oishii sushi and be assured that the sun will come up tomorrow and you really have no care in the world... the US military is seeing to that ! A little gratitude thrown their way I'm sure would be greatly appreciated.
SuperLib at 01:45 AM JST - 14th April

I have been mostly ignoring threads like this from Iraq since every one turns into a debate about whether the invasion was justified or not. It's a bit difficult to believe people are still bringing up the same recycled material on a near daily basis here.

Why not just call a truce. With respect to whether the invasion was justified or not, just accept the fact that the other side is not going to agree with you and you are not going to agree with them. You guys get in the way of discussion of things that are important to Iraq today, still hoping that you can produce some kind of "check mate" situation that will shut up the other side forever. It's just not going to happen.

If you care about the country then talk about what should be done today to make it better. At this point you're nothing more than a complete jerk-off if you don't.
FromEurope at 02:07 AM JST - 14th April

westurn

“And the fact that you speak English, as I do, on this forum is proof enough that the Americans saved your Euro hide from the Nazis in WWII...”

This proves only that you can only speak or write in English. (In Europe, many people speak and write in several languages, but it’s not because of the WW2) This doesn’t prove anything that America saved Europe. This shows only your arrogance about the America in which you certainly were not born yet. I told you before, without the USSR victory in the east front, America lead allies couldn’t win against Nazis. But you didn’t get my point. In the WW2, many allies fought together, because there was a real threat to the world. But this Iraq invasion by the US lead allies had no justification and that’s why not only the European countries, but also most of the world’s countries didn’t follow the US. And the allies could win theWW2 thanks to all the other countries. The proof is that the US troops alone still can’t win in Iraq, without the “real” reason and the other countries.
Betzee at 02:36 AM JST - 14th April

Personally, I find it amusing that guilt trips are being laid on Europeans for not helping out now the war is extending into a sixth year after major combat operation were declared over when most Americans haven't lifted a finger because, you know, it's a volunteer effort....
Sarge at 07:34 AM JST - 14th April

"The extremists in Iraq are the Americans"

You really believe that, don't you, Grouchy? With views like that it's no wonder you're grouchy.
westurn at 09:44 AM JST - 14th April

No FromEurope... you still haven't gotten my point, even though you clearly "claim" the same reason for Europes success in WWII !

"many allies fought together"

I rest my case !!! Europe failed to act in Bosnia, The Middle East (hey it wasn't the Americans that divided up that region after WWII now was it ?), and currently today in Africa... which continues to fester right at your doorstep !!! The Americans saved you from the horror of the Nazis and a lifetime of speaking German, they are now doing the same to keep the Koran from being forced down yer throat by some religious zealot ! I simply recognize this and support their efforts... you don't ! You whine, I don't ! You'll be brushing up on your Islam... I won't, I got a baseball game to attend !
westurn at 09:48 AM JST - 14th April

Oh and Betzee... trust me, the guilt trips being laid on Europe have been going on since day one ! Remember freedom fries ? Now look at Frenchie, fighting off muslim youths as they rampage in the streets and put the burn on Paris as they demand that France change her laws to meet the needs of the new muslim population. All after France declared she would not support the fighting in the M.E. region... odd, didn't seem to matter a bit as France's newest guests felt free to loot, burn, destroy city after city for nights and days in France ! Now "that" Betzee is "amusing" !
redacted at 10:31 AM JST - 14th April

Just because Europeans took bribes from Saddam Hussein and armed him to the teeth does not mean you can try and guilt trip em.

Did I get it right?
Betzee at 07:02 PM JST - 15th April

Westurn, The fact you've hijacked the topic of this thread to make it about Europe is an obvious attempt to divert attention from the situation the US finds itself in. Our bloodiest week in Iraq in 2008 was the same week GWB announced he'll give General Petreaus "all the time he needs," underscoring the White House's utter cluelessness on how to achieve the "victory" they speak about. Needless to say, it's all the time GWB needs to get out of office and pass this mess on to his successor. I thought the Republican mantra was "personal responsibility." Sure don't any evidence of that here....
DanManjt at 11:51 PM JST - 16th April

SuperLib

If you cared about getting a bus out of a ditch, you'd need identify how bus got there in the first place. But you can't, because the driver and his crew are stoping you from doing it.

So, the first thing is you'd do is can the driver. Then you try to shut up the fools who put the driver in the the drivers seat, and continue to so loudly sing sang camp songs that the rest of us who are trying to figure out how to get the bus out of the ditch can;t concentrate on the problem of getting the bus out.

The song-singers, of course, sing so loudly because they don't want to get nailed for having supported the stupid fool of a bus driver in the first place.

Never forget, this has been a partisan war from the get-go.

They're